Uhhh.

I am not cut out for blogging. So I'm going to stop blogging here. Mostly. I might occasionally post something, but I wouldn't count on it.
However, I have a new blog. I don't intend on updating it much. It's mostly my own notes and things I've written and things people have said. Just a place to keep stuff. Feel free to follow it, but don't expect ALL THE WORDS EVER.
http://dastardlyloop.blogspot.com

And Gone.

Listening to Amanda Palmer's ukulele Radiohead covers EP.
Working on the 200 portraits project.
There's a competition at the moment. If you retweet about http://200portraits.info or post about it somewhere and link me to it or make sure I see it, you go in the running to win a print of an older picture (not old old. I did it in the past year. But it's not new). So far, response is good. Might keep it going until I go home.
I had tacos in the backyard with my brothers today. I wore pajamas all day. I downloaded 'Everybody's Gotta Live' by Love and remembered making plans with Rachael based around going to South Bank and singing that particular song loudly. Then I remembered her buying a poem for £1 from a guy there and local authorities shuffling him along.

I also remembered this girl, Emily, who I used to kind of know who was one of the most interesting people I've ever met and also one of the most approachable. I was kind of fixated on her for a while. I was interested in hearing about her life (not to a stalker degree. Just in a way where we were friends on MySpace and I actually bothered to check what she was up to now and then). She was very sick, though. On and off. Like everyone who was in my life around 4 years ago, she disappeared into the void. I genuinely thought she had died because she was so sick and disappeared so abruptly and took all her friends with her. I never heard anything about her again and was too scared to ask. A while ago...Probably a couple of years ago at this stage, come to think about it...There was this thing in Covent Garden. It was like a funny shaped room. Inside there were coloured squares and you texted your wishes to a number and they appeared on the coloured squares inside. (I actually found what it is. Click here for a little explanation.) Anyway, me and my friend Sophia walked in and stood staring at the things that appeared on the walls for a few minutes. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw dark red hair and I spun around quickly to see Emily standing there, staring at the walls with the rest of us. I must have been gawking because she shot me a quick worried glance, laughed, grabbed her friend by the arm and ran off. I stepped out of the 'wishing well' and looked around for her, but she was no where in sight. But she wasn't dead, so that's nice.

Anyway. Today I've been wearing pajamas, drawing and remembering.

'Mystery Project #3'

A few days ago, I tweeted something like this:
'If you're creative and can record yourself talking (maybe even if you can't) and may want to do a thing, email me. audreybishop@live.co.uk'
Then I gathered up the replies (I can't remember how many there were, but I am happy to saythat it was a number above 10. That's when I stopped counting. Not everyone has responded to that email, though, so it might be down to something more like 6 or 7) and sent out an email explaining what I was doing and why. I won't go far into the 'why?' because it was inspired by a conversation I had with someone who doesn't realise I'm using the conversation for my new project, but the 'what?' is a a podcast type thing about what people do in terms of art or creativity or whatever they want to talk about and how they do whatever they do. And why. And what they're doing.
So far, on my side, I seem to have someone who sings and acts and someone who cooks and maybe a writer and maybe a photographer and a couple of others that I can't exactly recall at this very moment. A few of the people, I think, know me mostly from the 200 Portraits project and Beth Hommel's tweet about it. So I'm glad that that has helped me get people interested.

Anyway, today I'm getting on a bus for like 7 hours or something to go to London to meet my mum. Then we're going to Kent. On Friday I'm going to HESFES to do some volunteer work type stuff. I'll get to see Keira, who I've known since I was 9 and have barely seen since I moved to Carlisle...along with a few other people but I don't think many of my friends are actually going.
Going to take a lot of photos and draw and not use my computer for a whole week. Special.

I also won't be updating the 200 Portraits site during my trip. If you need any info or anything like that, though, you can contact my assistant: twitter: assistantchump ...I'll post her email address here later.

It's been a thing, you guys.

In my email account, I have a folder reserved for emails relating to 200 Portraits. Specifically the ones that actually came with photos (questions and responses to the update emails remain in the inbox). So far there is about 120. I've recieved photos in other places so soon I'll need to really count them up and figure out how many I have and if I should stop asking for submissions.
My best friend Bekki recently offered to be my assistant. So far the main thing she has had to do is gather email addresses to add to a list...Partly so if I decide I want to send an update to everyone who has sent a photo, I don't need to go too far to find their addresses and partly just because it's good to have a list of everyone who is involved. After I gave her full access to my (personal, might I add. This is how lazy I am. All your emails regarding the project go to my personal email address even though I have one specifically for 200 Portraits that I don't use) email account, she sorted through all of them and put them into the correct folder.
My hero.
I asked her if she'd read any of the emails that had come with the photos and she said no. I am grateful that she was thoughtful enough to not just read my stuff, but I kind of wish she had. Some of the stories that have been sent with the photos have really been something.
I've had emails from people who are sick and in hospital, parents who are worried about their children, people who believe that they aren't beautiful and want to see what I can do with their pictures.
People who didn't say anything about their pictures even though they looked like they had really interesting stories. That was nice as well. It's nice that there are interesting people with interesting pictures and interesting stories who don't feel the need to explain themselves. Because maybe what I am looking at and thinking 'wow. That's so strange/cool/funny!' about isn't really anything to them.
People in crazy costumes. A horse.
It's been really interesting so far and I look forward to seeing what else appears in my inbox.
The response to the cards I've been sending out to people who donate has been positive. That is very pleasing because it's not the easiest aspect of this. I am trying to complete a lot of suitable portraits of absolute strangers and the cards are really only another thing on the list. But knowing people are getting them and enjoying them makes it 10 times easier to pick up a pencil again and again and again for things that won't even be a part of the one large goal towards which I am trying to head.

Anyway, here is an interview that a friend of mine posted on her blog. Also it's a good blog, so maybe you should become a reader of it too.
http://monstergirlwrites.blogspot.com/2010/06/interviewing-audrey-bishop-of-200.html

http://200portraits.info

A.

200 Portraits and a Carrot Cake.

I have blue hair.


























I dyed it last night. I used some really good dye. I used Fudge Paintbox dye which is the best coloured dye I've ever used. My mum used it to put pink in my hair when I was a lot younger and I used to wear a red bandanna over it. A couple of years ago I dyed all my hair bright pink and it looked amazing. A lady on the bus asked me if I was a rockstar and countless little girls walked past me with their parents pointing at me and saying they wanted hair like mine. SO. I went online and found a person on amazon who sold that particular kind of dye in the UK and I got a colour called 'blue hawaii'.
But yeah! This is a terrrrible picture because it's just a phone one I took to post on twitter. You can also see what a mess my desk is. Whoops.

Today I'm going to watch Sleeping Beauty. In my hunt for interesting facts and things, I discovered this, which is supposedly an early version of the story: Sun, Moon and Talia (click)
I thought it was interesting (also if you don't understand the story, while slightly different, the plot on the wikipedia page makes way more sense).

Aaaanyway, I've been doing this project...I'm doing 200 portraits of all different people who send me their photos. Someone even sent me a picture of their horse. You can do it too: CLICK!
You can see some of the pictures there, but here are a couple of my favourites:




Paloma(13/200) and Sarah (1/200)


So yeah. That's what's going on.
I also did a brief interview for Monster Girl Writes (which is a brilliant blog, by the way) and if that goes up, I'll post a link here.

Later, dudes.
A.

-24th April 2010, Shepherds Bush.
Partly at Paloma's house, partly to combat boredom during quieter moments at the merch table.

I uploaded a bunch of stuff to facebook, if we're friends on there.
My mum kindly uploaded this photo she took of me at the bus station just before I left London, also:





































I can't say I'd thank her for it.

Loss.

As far as I know, I have to go home. Or I get to go home. I haven't decided.
Going home means getting to go swimming.
Going home also means I lose most of my possessions and someone I care about.
The longest I remember living in one house=3 years.
The shortest I remember living in one house=6 months.
I'd say on average I usually spend around a year and a half living in a house.
There was the one with the garage on the hill that I pointed out saying 'we lived there!' each time we went past it for years, even though I don't remember living there.
There was a two storey house in a weird sort of court where all the houses matched and my dad had 2 mokes and I liked to dress up as Pocahontas and steal pea pods from the plants that grew from our neighbours yard into ours.
There was the house in a court in Mill Park where I made enemies of the girls who lived on the other end, out of which we eventually moved because of earwigs. They were everywhere. We were plagued by the things.
There was the beautiful but small house in Ocean Grove. A 10 minute walk from the beach, a lovely backyard...My nanna owned it and now she lives in it.
There were others but when I try to remember them my mind just goes blank.
I've lived in different houses in different countries and states so that means that when I build up a collection of things...things that I'm used to being able to see and touch and use...I often have to lose them. And friends...I have lost so many friends. Sometimes I've left town and not bothered to tell the friends or I never bother to keep in contact (the internet has changed this ever so slightly, which is wonderful). Once I came out of school and met my dad and he said that we were moving to Sydney and I didn't have any say and I didn't get to tell my best friend until we'd driven all the way to Sydney and I got to call her when I got there.
I used to have so many books. As a child, I read all the time. I read and I drew. All I did. I lived in the library.
I had so many books that they filled boxes and bookshelves and every time I moved I had to get rid of most of them. But my collection would always build back up, as if by magic.
It's slowed over the years.
I spend less time reading but I still have more books than I could carry to another continent. I also have more CDs and DVDs and I have all these random bits of life that it would absolutely kill to lose.
I get jealous of the people I meet who live in the same house they lived in when they were 3 or whose parents (or one of their parents) still live in the house in which they were concieved because that means the possibility of going through boxes and finding things you haven't seen since you were 6 and old photos and not building up your life, wary of the fact that one day you might have to give it all away or just lose it. Once when I was younger one of my mother's friends lived with us and she came home to find that she'd stolen everything we owned except for the TV and a box of photos.
If you're one of those lucky people who has barely moved their entire life, I'm jealous. You should take advantage of that and go through all the cupboards in the house right now.

All that said, I'm not disappointed with how things are. I've travelled so much and seen so many places.
I just want to stop for a little while.